‘Tis the month of love… the love of dessert, we say. Yes, yes. It’s February. Valentine’s Day has come and gone. But the month also marks ‘Madly in Love with Me Day’, ‘World Nutella Day’, ‘Chocolate Fondue Day’ and ‘Eat Ice-cream for Breakfast Day’. So, it would be a disservice to chefs across the region to not celebrate all of this with a bit of sweet stuff? Right? Right? We knew you didn’t need much convincing. ...

Oil producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia aim to draft an agreement on a long-term alliance by the end of this year, United Arab Emirates energy minister Suhail al-Mazroui told the local National newspaper on Thursday. The newspaper also quoted him as saying OPEC was urging its members to build oil capacity buffers to temper any wild upswings in price due to the weak US dollar this year. OPEC and non-OPEC producers are restraining production to prop up prices under a ...

The UAE’s al-Ain Municipality and the Abu Dhabi Centre of Waste management have announced that fines for littering and depositing waste will be between 1,000 Dhs ($270) and 100,000 Dhs ($27,000) as part of their nine-month campaign to raise awareness among residents.According to Gulf News, an al-Ain Municipality official said that a similar awareness campaign in 2017 resulted in a 70 percent success rate.The purpose of the campaign is to preserve the appearance of the city while educating ...

Du, the United Arab Emirates’ No.2 telecom operator, reported a 14.9 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit on Thursday, boosted by a rise in revenue, improvement in gross margin and cost savings. The company, which ended rival Etisalat’s domestic monopoly in 2007, made a net profit after royalty of 425 million dirhams ($115.7 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, up from 370 million dirhams in the year-earlier period. SICO Bahrain forecast du would make a quarterly profit of ...

Border authorities have captured 22 people who tried to enter the United Arab Emirates hiding inside a concrete mixer loaded on a truck, the country’s WAM news agency reported.The agency said that the Federal Customs Authority in the Emirate of Sharjah were able to stop the people smugglers at the customs center of the border shipping.Capturing the illegal migrants reportedly took place earlier in February, after the truck was inspected by the thermal and X-ray images as part of routine ...

The waters of the Arabian Gulf have long been home to pearl oysters, providing a valuable mainstay to Arab tribes that subsisted off its trade before the discovery of oil pumped new life into the Arabian Peninsula. Now, off the shores of the United Arab Emirates, a new type of oyster is thriving — the edible kind. Long thought of as a cold water delicacy, edible oysters are being farmed in the warm waters of Fujairah, an emirate with a coastline that juts out into the Gulf of Oman. The ...

The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal will reconvene for the second time to consider the appeal of the death penalty verdict issued last year to a 33-year-old Pakistani man.The man found guilty of raping and killing his nephew in 2017 was sentenced to death.The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court found the man guilty of raping and murdering 11-year-old Azan Majid Janjua, whose body was found on the rooftop of the building in the UAE capital where his family lived.The court also sentenced the man to pay blood money ...

Dubai has launched its ‘10X2.0’ initiative at the World Government Summit (WGS) on Monday which aims to make the city 10 years ahead of others in the fields of technology and services. The initiative, which was launched by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, is an upgrade from a previous version, ‘10X’, which was launched in the 2017 WGS by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE ...

A Pakistani man who was in the UAE on a tourist visa was charged with forgery in a hearing at the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday, after allegedly defrauding a man of a 2.1 million Dhs ($570,000) fake car sale deal.According to Khaleej Times, the 40-year-old man pretended to possess the documents of 43 cars, which turned out to be fake as they were not issued by Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority.The complainant, a 45-year-old man from Jordan, said that he had a history of ...

The UAE’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) showcased the world’s first driverless pods at the World Government Summit on Sunday. The autonomous vehicles are meant to travel short to medium distances, and will have a capacity to accommodate 10 passengers (six seated and four standing), according to Gulf news. The pods can travel attached, or separately depending on the riders’ destination. Each pod is fitted with a battery that can last up to three hours, and can be recharged ...